Wichita deputy police chief criticized for role in text message scandal takes a new job

One of the Wichita Police Department deputy chiefs criticized for the mishandling of discipline for officers who sent racist text messages has taken a new job.

Chester Pinkston will go from overseeing hundreds of officers as the deputy chief over field services to being chief of the Liberal, Kansas, police department, which has 42 officers and 10 civilians. He will be paid $120,000, nearly $3,000 less than in Wichita.

Pinkston did not respond to questions from The Eagle.

He starts in Liberal on Feb. 20. The move comes ahead of any discipline he and deputy chief Jose Salcido might face for their roles in the text message scandal, and before a third party report that is likely to be critical of the department and its handling of the incident.

Liberal city manager Rusty Varnado said he knows about the controversy and added he “appreciated the courage and integrity” it took Pinkston and Salcido to do a media interview where they alleged bribery and corruption at City Hall.

The deputy chiefs and former chief Gordon Ramsay made the allegations after an internal city report blamed them for their roles in the text message scandal. They, along with former deputy chief Wanda Givens, have sent a letter to the city threatening a lawsuit and demanding the resignation of city manager Robert Layton and $2.5 million.

“That would depend on the version of events that people chose to believe,” Varnado said, “which has nothing to do with me or us. From my perspective, anyone who was willing to go to that length to defend themselves, that publicly, it showed the type of courage and integrity that we want our department to emulate.”

Varnado said the last chief resigned in October, several months after Varnado started, because the two had a different vision for the department. A national search firm had 17 candidates that were then narrowed down to two: Pinkston, who Varnado said is from Hutchinson, and Southern Nazarene University police chief Dan Hansen.

The job was offered to Pinkston on Friday. Pinkston has been with the WPD for more than 30 years.

“We’re excited to see where Chet can take the department and we’ll be happy to get him on board,” Varnado said.

Pinkston and Salcido were the only two leaders still with the Wichita department when The Eagle first reported on the text message scandal in March 2022. An internal committee report said their “competency to continue serving in their current roles and their contribution to a lacking culture of accountability and leadership” should be determined.

The third-party Jensen Hughes report in February could also come with additional scrutiny of the police department’s top brass. The day after The Eagle first reported on the messages and discipline, the city announced it would hire an organization to look into problems within the police department and investigate how it disciplines its officers.

Jensen Hughes was the company the city picked. The company is one of the top law enforcement consulting firms in the country. It issued scathing reports when it was hired to investigate police departments in Louisville and Minneapolis after the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

In Wichita, multiple officers were suspended after the city reopened the text message incident following The Eagle’s story. Originally, the only officer suspended was one who called Ramsay a tool. The messages included officers talking about allegiance to the extremist group Three Percenters, being blase about shooting and killing people and a photoshopped image of a naked Black man sitting on the head of George Floyd.